Wan Jie Hospice Care Company

"What's the point then?" The man in the paper clothes was taken aback; he still didn't understand what Xiang Yu meant.

"First, let's assume that the disappearances were caused by ghosts. Otherwise, with so many people missing, the police would have found no trace of them." Xiang Yu stretched out a finger and slowly drew a circle in the air.

He paused, the empty circle at his fingertip hovering in mid-air.

"Think about it, if the disappearance case predates the mall's construction, doesn't that prove the ghost appeared before the mall was built? That means the ghost wasn't attached to the mall, but to something else."

An Ling suddenly raised her hand, like a diligent student in class: "Does a ghost necessarily have to attach itself to an object?"

"I don't know. We don't have much information right now, but this is all we can guess." Xiang Yu sat cross-legged on the inflatable castle, answering decisively, "The ghosts we've encountered before all follow this pattern, although we haven't encountered many..."

"Hmm... then we can only take this as a premise." Anling felt that she had no choice but to try anything now.

"What are you guys talking about? I don't understand a word." The man in the paper clothes grabbed his hair, looking like someone who had missed three episodes of a TV series, the plot of which had long since moved on to places he couldn't keep up with.

"It's alright, you don't need to understand, just listen." Xiang Yu paused for a moment, "The way I usually deal with ghosts is to find the original body that the ghost is attached to, then destroy it... and finally collect it."

He gazed at the dim yellow lights of the amusement park overhead, and spoke even more slowly: "That's how dolls and ceramic figurines are made."

"But if it's a ghost, then it's this mall itself..." He shrugged. "The few of us think we can smash it up? Dream on."

"But if the ghost appeared before the mall was built, it proves that its true form was hidden somewhere in the mall, and definitely not the mall itself," Xiang Yu replied slowly. "And it definitely wasn't a product that appeared after the mall was built, since the missing people were construction workers, and the mall wasn't even finished being decorated yet."

"Then we can only think about what kind of ghosts might have been attached to this shopping mall before it was completed?"

Xiang Yu, drawing inferences from what he knew before and what he had recently experienced, posed a question.

As he pondered, he surveyed his surroundings. At the edge of the children's playground, besides the few sturdy load-bearing pillars, stood several large concrete columns purely for decoration. Xiang Yu silently counted them: east, south, west, north, northeast, southwest, northwest, southeast—eight directions, not one more, not one less.

He suddenly paused, as if he had thought of something.

However, it was obvious that the paper-clothed man on the side couldn't understand Xiang Yu's words at all, and although An Ling was careful, she was relatively weak in this kind of logical reasoning and couldn't figure it out for a while.

"...What will be there before the mall is completed? Isn't there nothing there?" Anling asked, bewildered.

"That's because you're a naive young lady." The man in paper clothes was unusually able to chime in. "There's plenty of stuff in a bare-bones apartment... surely there's cement and steel bars, right?" He glanced at the calm and composed man in the corner and felt a strange sense of dependence on him. If this man hadn't been able to sit still and think, he would have panicked like a runaway horse.

"So... Brother, do you have an answer now?" The man in paper clothes placed his hopes on Xiang Yu.

Xiang Yu suddenly scratched the back of his head and said with a smile, "Hehe...not at all."

"Absolutely none?!"

The man in the paper clothes suddenly felt weak in the knees. He had always thought that Xiang Yu's composure in the face of imminent collapse was due to his confidence.

It turns out it was all an act!

"But at least we have a direction now." Xiang Yu stood up, patted his pants, and said, "Having a direction for solving problems is better than running around like a headless fly."

He paused, then suddenly looked up, gazing into the darkness deep within the amusement park.

"Ah, this inflatable castle seems to have spotted us."

"Um?"

At this moment, the three noticed that several figures seemed to have appeared around them.

The plastic mat, which should have been soft and yielding, resembled a pool of rippled black water, with shadows slowly seeping out from beneath it.

They were short, about the same height as the ghost children on the third floor, but their numbers... were terrifying. One, ten, dozens, hundreds, they densely packed the tops of every inflatable castle around, even the folds of the plastic sheeting were filled with tiny ghost children.

It's just like a zombie apocalypse.

And one by one, very slowly, they turned their featureless faces this way.

"Now we should..." The man in the paper clothes was taken aback.

"run."

With a single word, "Yet," he darted off.

"Hey—! But running like this isn't going to work!" The man in paper clothes scrambled to catch up. "Ghosts keep popping out of this place; we'll be cornered sooner or later!"

"So you're not going to run away?" Xiang Yu darted and weaved among the undulating castles, his movements as swift as a fish gliding into water. "I'm going to die anyway, so might as well just die now, right?"

"This..." The man in paper clothes choked, and could only grit his teeth, kick the deadly soft ground, and follow him step by step.

Behind them, layers upon layers of ghost children seemed to be pulled by invisible threads, surging towards the three of them in unison. There was no sound of footsteps, and hundreds of tiny figures stepped on the inflatable castle without even the slightest collapse, as if they were stepping on solid cement, eerily stable.

On the other hand, the living people sank into the soft, sagging plastic with every step, stumbling and struggling as if they were running for their lives in a dream, desperately trying to move their legs, but never managing to run fast.

"By the way, do you have any more information?" Xiang Yu shouted as he ran. "Didn't you lie in wait in the mall every day? Didn't you find anything unusual?"

"Special...?" The man in the paper clothes was panting heavily, but his mind was racing because of that question. "I—I remember!"

"What? Speak up!"

"A stench! The children's playground on the fourth floor, which is where we are right now!" The man in the paper clothes gasped for breath. "There's a strange, foul smell!"

"A strange stench?"

"Yes... at first I thought it was because there were a lot of children in the area that it smelled, but the smell wasn't like body odor."

"Are you sure it's not a giant golden python that a child pooped on inside the inflatable castle?"

"If it were that smell, I would have recognized it already! I've never smelled that stench before, but it's really awful!"

The three ran with all their might, but the dark shadow behind them was getting closer and closer. Xiang Yu still had some strength left, but the man in paper clothes and An Ling could not hold on at all.

"I can't... I can't run anymore..." The man in paper clothes blushed crimson. Running wildly on this soft ground where each step sank half an inch was practically playing with fire. He glanced back; the black tide moved across the castle as if it were flat ground, unhurried and getting closer and closer.

This made him feel even more desperate.

The image of being caught and torn to shreds by hundreds of tiny hands flashed through his mind, and cold sweat broke out on the spot.

Sooner or later they'll catch up and dismember you!

So Xiang Yu took a deep breath, feeling somewhat helpless:

"Lie down."

"What?"

"You two, get down!" His voice suddenly rose and then quickly fell back down. "From now on, close your eyes."

Lie down? Close your eyes?

The man in the paper clothes felt a chill run through him. Lying down like this was no different from lying in a coffin. And closing his eyes—wasn't that like meat on a chopping block, giving up even the struggle?

But when he turned his head, he saw that the girl named An Ling had not hesitated at all. She lay down straight, closed her eyes, and was as quiet as if she were asleep, without a trace of fear on her face.

The man in the paper clothes swallowed hard.

Oh well, I'm going to die either way.

He gritted his teeth, his knees buckled, and he collapsed onto the soft, uneven ground, closing his eyes and surrendering himself to the hundreds and thousands of dark figures that were about to pounce on him.

The world suddenly fell silent.

But he saw that the girl didn't seem to hesitate at all; she simply lay down on the ground with her eyes closed, without any psychological burden.

The man in the paper clothes could only grit his teeth and obey Xiang Yu's words, lying on the ground and quietly waiting for his death.

At this moment, the two people lying on the ground felt the world quiet down, with only the ground shaking from their footsteps remaining, and a strange sense of disorientation.

For some reason, the man in the paper clothes suddenly remembered his childhood.

Back then, he took his younger brother to play on the trampoline, teaching the boy to lie in the middle of the mattress, and then he would slam down on him with all his might, bouncing his brother high into the air.

The world was like that back then, with only the tremors beneath me and the laughter of children remaining.

Sigh, if only my brother were still alive.

He sighed in despair.

The expected death did not occur.